Friday, 16 November 2012

Video Shows Captured SA-16 And SA-24 Surface To Air Missiles

Following my earlier post examining evidence of SA-24 and SA-16 surface to air missile captured by Syrian opposition groups a video has been posted on Youtube which appears to show the same missiles captured, along with a large number of other weapons

Here are some key frames from the video that provides more details on what has been captured.
Thanks to Steve Zaloga and Matt Schroeder for additional information.

At the start of the video we see two crates, one holding a cutaway demonstration model of a missile, and a yellow demonstration model of the SA-24, both totally useless.

The two crates above those crates hold a pair of live SA-24 missile tubes each.

As the camera pans over we catch a glimpse of two more live SA-24 missile tubes on the right side of the screen.

The camera than shows a AT-3 anti-tank missile.

Before quickly panning over a pair of training SA-24s, again not much use to the Syrian opposition.

The camera pans up to show two crates containing a pair of training SA-24s each, along with the grip stock, and just in the top left corner we spot another pair of live SA-24 missile tubes.

The camera than quickly pans across, and for a brief moment on the right hand side of the screen we see what appears to be the edge of a live SA-16 missile tube, and more importantly what appears to be two spare SA-16 batteries. This means the only missing component for a complete SA-16 missile system is the grip-stock.

Finally we have another pair of training SA-24s, followed by a massive amount of guns and other items.

So in total we appear to have
- 10 training or demonstration SA-24s.
- 8 live SA-24 missile tubes.
- 1-2 live SA-16 missile tubes
- 2 SA-16 batteries.

It's still unclear if live SA-16 or SA-24 grip-stocks have been captured, and training grip-stocks will not work with the live missile tubes. However, there were reports of a helicopter shot down in the area today, as well as video of a downed Hip Mi-8, although it's impossible to know if these events were related at this stage.